I thought ["Summer Sisters" ] would be a children's book - two girls who summer together from very different backgrounds. And then when it just kept going and going and going. They kept getting older.

How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives.

Ideas come from everywhere - they come from what you see and hear and imagine.

I wanted to write honest books for kids because I didn't have those when I was a kid.

My mother never talked about sex. I was on the Dr. Ruth [ Westheimer] show once - this is years and years and years ago - and it was her Mother's Day show. And I didn't know what we were going to talk about but what she decided we were going to talk about was female masturbation. My mother had invited all her girlfriends. And you know these were all women in their late seventy's maybe they were in their eighty's by then and then and they were horrified because Dr Ruth had a little she had a little chart up you know "female masturbation".

I'm a more skilled writer now, but after 23 books it's harder to be fresh and that's really important to me. I don't want to write the same thing over and over again.

My mother was my greatest fan.